In a communications system in which communications apparatuses are connected via a network, setting to mutually exchange messages between the communications apparatuses so as to have a report or a request made to a destination apparatus has been performed up to now. Then, in such system, transmitting a command as an operational request from a certain apparatus to another apparatus so as to have an operation performed and to have an execution result of the operation sent back from the transmission destination as an operational response has also been performed.
Such a technique is disclosed, for example in Patent Document 1 in which a remote processor transmits to a local processor a message instructing a command to be executed and receives a response to the command.
Moreover, in this document, a technique is also disclosed that provides for transmitting a command from the outside to inside of the firewall by providing for transmitting a communications request to a remote processor outside the firewall and having the remote processor transmit to a local processor a command as a response to this communications request when the local processor is placed inside the firewall.
Patent Document 1
JP2001-273211A
Moreover, a technique regarding such operational request can also be applied to a system which remotely controls an operation of an apparatus connected to a communications apparatus. In Patent Document 2 is described an example in which such technique is applied to a remote-control system in which a command is transmitted from a remote-control apparatus having a function of accepting user operations for an apparatus to be remotely controlled that has a function of operating blinds and lighting so as to operate the blinds and the lighting. However, in this document, the fact that a response to the command is transmitted is not shown.
Patent Document 2
JP2002-135858A
Now, when trying to use a certain service which is provided in response to a command, it is possible that apparatuses which provide the service differ depending on the command. Then, with a system in which a command is transmitted with a destination being specified as in the conventional technique, in such a case a service cannot be used unless an appropriate destination is grasped per command and the command is transmitted for that apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem that the management burden of destination information is large.
Moreover, while there may also be a case of a service provider changing or a system configuration changing such that a necessity arises for changing the destination of the command, failing to report the change of the destination per each terminal apparatus results in not being able to use the service. Therefore, there is a problem that not correctly managing destination information results in hampering the use of the service.
The present invention aims to resolve such problems and to reduce the burden of managing the destination information as well as to make it possible to configure a communications system which allows for stable operations even when the system configuration is changed when a certain communications apparatus transmits to multiple communications apparatuses an operational request and receives an operational response to that operational request.